I love this graphic showing most of the social networking sites and virtual worlds like a map, enticing you to explore new lands while subtly showing who the major players are right now. Social media is the heart of Web 2.0. It is about people connecting and sharing information. So I ask the question, “What is the relevance to public relations?”
Let me give you some statistics I found on social media:
- 80% of internet users will use virtual worlds by 2011
- US ad spending on social networks will top $2.5 billion by 2011
Now, don't ask me why the year 2011 is so important, but at the Gartner Symposium 2007 (where the statistics came from), the following comment was made about social media:
“The collaborative and community-related aspects of these environments will dominate in the future, and significant transaction-based commercial opportunities will be limited to niche areas, which have yet to be clearly identified,” said Steve Prentice, vice president and analyst at Gartner. “However, the majority of active Internet users and major enterprises will find value in participating in this area in the coming years."
Prentice said the key word--niche. It will be how money is made online, and it will be how public relations reaches out to people. They are already congregating in self-identified interest groups for us. We just need to be sincere and approach them as people and not as a simple target groups. We need to add digital elements into our campaigns and realize that most people get their information from friends and online.
Now that friends and online mean practically the same thing, we can't ignore the powerful combination of online communities.
1 comment:
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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